There's time for respite at the efficiency apartments, time to snack, time to smoke, time to refresh one's dry mouth. Time to generally agree that the present situation is /fucked/. Wesker reinvokes his stated position: Umbrella can't be allowed to get away with this. The information can't just be destroyed as the city crumbles; it's important. It doesn't mean he doesn't agree with Dixon and Kirov about the entire affair being /utter bullshit/. It just means that he has to go in there-- along with anyone brave enough to follow.

The trip onto the campus is a delightful non-event. The roving hordes have migrated to the chapel quadrant, leaving behind only those zombies who are hard of hearing, or perhaps simply forgot what they were doing by the time they broke out of whichever building confined them. Long story short, it's easy work, same shit as a dozen other times by this point, for Daryl and Albert to clear their path with combat knives, when Andrei doesn't simply swiftly identify a path by which to slip through unheard and unseen.

Their destination is the modern hall that houses the University's school of veterinary medicine. It's a department with a bad reputation for bad accidents and mysterious disappearances, a place animal lovers insist has bad, bad juju. Knowing they're going beyond it to a hidden lab called 'The Kennel' isn't exactly doing much to debunk those urban legends, is it? There are students and faculty within the hall, or rather, what once was-- now they are hungry creatures, roaming blindly in the dark.

With the advantage of their nightvision, these foes prove easy to clear as well-- but it's a demoralizing sight as they penetrate deeper into the hall. The myriad of kenneled animals are an unthreatening mix of dead and caged undead; those who starved to death infected, and those who perished before it could reach them. Emaciated, frail, and captive, there have been fiercer infected mammals to-date in the Outbreak; but perhaps none quite so starkly heartbreaking.

"... The entrance to the Umbrella facility should be through the pharmacy." Wesker offers quietly, 'coping' with the situation by cutting quickly towards the route back out of the room.

Oh yes- Utterbullshit. Kirov will echo these sentiments quite readily whenever prompted to, but it's clear with the way he doesn't seem too active in purporting that, or being upset with Umbrella corporation.. or really any of it that well.. his heart isn't really quite into all of this being angry at the corporation. After all, this failure, this gross negligence had offered the man an opportunity to get away from his rather droll life of being a park ranger. Day in and day out having to passively accept Greg eating all the food in the fridge.

THAT FOOD WAS LABELED GREG YOU FUCKING ASSHOLE.

Greg was dead, and Kirov actually kind of felt bad about that really, you know, as bad as you can feel for his manager greg, he was a dick. Anyway! What were we doing? Right! Going to the College Campus to get some secrets or some information, valuable valuable information that could easily be sold- er recovered for the good of the people involved at the very least, if not the whole world!

With this totally benevolent and generous attitude, Andrei Kirov joins Wesker's quest towards the college, Shotgun slung over his shoulder, gasmask and NVD hung around his neck, waiting to be put to use at the right time. Once Kirov is amidst the kennels, he'll take the time to slip on his nightvision only to get a rather startling sight.. and just began mentally reciting his mantra of get paid and get out.

Daryl hadn't ever gone to college, don't everyone gasp at once, but he was less interested in going than ever now. Walking along with Wesker and Kirov, he kept his bow wielded and ready as they moved through the halls, with a blood knife strapped to the underside of his left wrist, the hand he held the body of his bow with.

Holding up her looted MP5, and following along in Wesker's footsteps, Rebecca brings up a hand to adjust her night vision goggles on her face, kinda frowning at the others. Lingering behind - the medic chews on her lower lip, letting her eyes track from Daryl, to Wesker. "How'd you know it was here, Wesker?" she asks, her features holding dismay as they approached the route in the back.

"Good question, isn't it?" Alice replied to Rebecca Chambers as she stepped out of the shadows, perhaps having been here all along or even tailing the group for some time; it was one of those mysteries that nobody would ever have an answer to. A mystery just like Rebecca's question of Wesker, she smiled at Albert waiting to see what he would say.

It's said that every lie is best concealed within an unassailable wall of truths. It is this capacity, perhaps more than anything, that makes Wesker such a valued operative. "There was a mole inside the Arklay Mountain facility that leaked an absolutely massive trove of information he smuggled out of the lab when it fell." Every word of it is true.

"This lab did R-Virus research tangential to the Mountain." Wesker further elucidates, "About all I was able to discern beyond that is that this place exists." Which also explains the value of documenting it; or extracting the data. "I hope you're not here for a fight; we have enough trouble."

Wesker keeps pistol and knife at the ready as he carefully advances through the next darkened room, a medical storeroom that's been largely looted, and into the cold storage beyond; in much the same disrepair. The hidden door leading to the elevator to the lab below is as powerless as the rest of the building, and the S.T.A.R.S. Captain sets diligently to prying it open.

"R-Virus?" Andrei will inquire then as he stands off to the side of the doorway then as he casts a curious glance to the rest of the group. "Your saying that.. there is.. its a virus huh?" His gaze as his talk still wanders, eventually setlling on Alice. She'll get a long stare before he just lifts his hand up to the woman and then up pops a thumb!

He'll then turn to look into the doorway then curiously trying to crook and crane his neck then before he humms. "So we are going in quiet is what I'm hearing again?" Andrei inquires as he looks over his soulder to the gun holstered behind him. The armory raid had been a rather unfortunate.. and in some ways amusingly pointless.

Daryl paused at the room entrance that they were walking through and his eyes went back toward Rebecca and and then to Alice. He stared at her for a moment before just lowering his crossbow down to his waist and turning to walk along the perimeter of the room and follow after Alberto.

Daryl glanced at the shotgun Kirov was holding, he was eager to see that damn thing actually kill something but at the same time knew it'd probably only happen if they were up shit creek. Following along and listening to the conversation, while keeping his senses as alert as he can.

Startling in place, Rebecca glances over her shoulder towards Alice, kinda canting her head to one side. "I'm Rebecca - by the way. RPD S.T.A.R.S... I umm..." squeezing the handle of the MP5 tighter, she breathes out a long sound. She seemed very willing to follow Wesker's lead, though - he, after all, was her hero.

As Weskers starts to pry the door open, Rebecca was quick to step forward - pulling a knife from her side as she jabs it into a point a little higher on the doorway, hoping to use it as leverage to open it up.

"The quieter the better, in my book - why? You wanna shoot things and wake the dead?" she asks, with a grin.

Alice nodded to Rebecca and Andrei, not giving her name in reply but instead advising Rebecca, "You may want to loosen up your grip." Keeping her hands free, she joined the group as they descended further in, a flash of familiarity in her eyes as she looked at Daryl and Wesker but offered very little in the way of words.

"If not more than one." Wesker confirms. It's at once alarming and reassuring, somehow. After all, "This isn't the apocalypse the Bible warns you about." The Captain mulls, leveraging the door in time with Rebecca to force it open at last. "Mankind doesn't need any help." Which does make it a much more clear and present sort of issue than hypothetical divine wrath, it's true. "If we're lucky, we can get in and out before anything moving down there realizes we're in." Because good luck and easy outcomes have defined the outbreak, so far.

"We'll find a terminal and download anything that's left, take a quick sweep of what's left down here." That it's a deceptively simple plan might be indicated again by the fact that even getting down there involves ripping into the elevator's circuits and wiring several key points to a battery pack, Wesker's efforts restoring enough power for operation; for now. He waits for everyone to board before sending the car down, down, down...

"Right.. Right." He'll offer in response to Wesker then, as he looks past the man, clearly intent on watching what the glorious leader is up to then as he offers aside to Rebecca then. "I'd prefer not to get eaten.. so I'm going to just follow whatever the team plan is to a T.. and well, play it by ear if anything too unusual happens." Andrei states rather cheerfully then before he hums and waits patiently...

Then the elevator appears and he pops inside, humming as he adjusts the sleeves of his restitched jacket, tightening his gloves around his fingers. Checking to make sure his poots are tied. Don't want anything to get caught or torn... and waiting for whatever horrors might await them.

While they're fussing with the elevator door, Daryl observes Alice again and he catches what she suggests to Rebecca. A moment later and he speaks low to her prior to the elevators arrival. "Its amazin' where killin' crows gets ya in life, huh?" He tells her in a quiet voice. When the doors open and the lift arrives he follows the others aboard it and then walks past Alice. "Makes ya wonder why you'd even hire me, if you were so good to begin with." And then he was aboard the elevator and found a corner to claim for himself. "This thing go straight to hell? Or is there any stops along the way?" He asks, loud enough for the rest of the class to hear now.

One doubted that Weskers actually needed the help, but Becca Chambers wasn't the type to sit around.

Boarding the elevator - Rebecca posts at one corner of the thing, biting her lower lip as she lifts her weapon up to aim at the door soon after. With the idea that as soon as the door opens, she'd trot out and kneel beside the opening, to provide cover for the rest disembarking. "I know I wanted you in because you were a good man, Daryl. I can tell these things," says Becca, on the path down. "Smell and all," she adds.

The assumption Rebecca makes about which hire Daryl is referring to is not corrected by Alice, the heavily armed woman a far-cry from the rich socialite he had dealt with before.. maybe it was true what they said about the hobbies of the wealthy.

"You should have left Raccoon City when I told you to." Alice replied to Daryl with a smirk, "Besides, I don't really like birds." A glance was given in the direction of Wesker as she stepped into the elevator but she didn't say anything to the man; clearly there was some sort of history between the two of them. Maybe he had arrested her for speeding before?

"Keep an eye on your corners, watch each others' backs." Easy, too easy, for one of them to get pinned in down here-- but that ties back in to Wesker's own reason for his associates, doesn't it? "Work like this you don't want one expert, you want as many capable hands as you can direct towards it." Beat. "I'm not aiming to die down here, mission or no." It's probably his way of saying he's glad no one called him on the promise to delve this lab alone, if he had to.

As Wesker's battery pack is retrieved from its hotwire, the team is once more cast into darkness, left to rely on motion, sound, and those handy, handy nightvision goggles to navigate the mazelike corridors of the laboratory. "The way I see it we have two options-- try to break into the Chief Researcher's office and rig up improvised power to the computer system, or try to get the lab's emergency power back on for mobility and ease." It's not a surefire plan, either way. "Someone's got to see this story told." Wesker notes to Alice, "Or is that -not- why you're here?" If Umbrella sent her to kill him, one would expect Alice to stick the ambush with a little more aplomb.

"Right so figure out a way to fix together a power system? Jury-rig something?" Andrei idly answers as he offers cheerfully, though he'll draw quiet as the doors finally open and his eyes shift to try and adjust to the dark. Once its clear where they are going lacks light all together, Andrei's fingers will feel around at his throat to lift the NVDs too his eyes and power them on. He'll take a momment to power them on.. then uh..

Just in case the Gas mask is going on too.. Dead rotting zombies tend to have peculiar smells after all..

Daryl followed along out of the lift and smirked faintly at Rebecca's words said at him. "You don't ever have to explain yourself to me, Chambers. You know you're my favorite." He said to her, lifting his crossbow up to about chest level and fiddling with one of the bolts on the front of it to keep it secure. He glanced over at Kirov when the gas mask was put on. "Nice. Where's mine?" He grumbled out.

"Thanks, Daryl!" chirps Rebecca, glancing back towards the man - her smile bright. As bright as one could be in a zombie hellhole, at least - her eyes going forward then, following along in formation. "You could try the military bases though - they have plenty of stuff like that. "I'd like to hope - everyone here isn't dying, right?" asks Rebecca, glancing from person to person then.

It was Alice her gaze lands on last, eyes narrowing as she tries to figure out how she fit in, a bit, in these social dynamics.

"I'm here to see Umbrella exposed for what they did." Alice replied without a second of hesitation to Wesker's line of questioning, "I just hope that's what you're really here for." Looking around as they stepped into the all too quiet area, she resisted the urge to reach for a weapon.

Stopping for a moment in mid-step she leaned against the wall and grabbed her arm, looking like she was in pain for a moment before looking down the hallway with concern.

"If you track the power conduits along the wall, they should lead you back to the generator room. Assuming it's not completely tapped or damaged, we should be able to power the security door to the research--." Wesker's assessment cuts off as he rounds the corner to approach just that aforementioned bulkhead. It's rent apart, the metal blasted, perhaps torn asunder by a potent force indeed from within the lab.

The stench that wafts out into the hall is indeed terrible, even with the apparent absence of zombies-- baying, barking, keening, and shrieking sound from the cages within the room as surviving infected beasts set one another off with the detected approach, several slamming hard indeed against their fortified enclosures. It's an unnatural, deeply unsettling thing, particularly reverberating off metal walls underground.

"... or, maybe we just walk in and bypass the computer system." A nod indicates the opposite wall he occupies as Wesker carefully enters the area, a scene of destruction and chaos, scattered with equipment and overturned furniture. "Look around you, Alice-- what other options are left?" An office down the corridor is Wesker's goal, stooping to examine the lock still holding it shut. "At least the computer should be intact, this way."

Andrei is a prepared gentleman, and here he stands with his respirator protecting him from anything that might assault his senses too badly. The lucky bastard must be feeling right happy with himself, and to some extent he is! At least.. the small part of him that wasn't about to wretch or freak outover the clearly supernatural, or at least unnatural elements that had torn open that door and made whatever was inside.. all the more dangerous in his mind.

"Right so, we will just go together, as a group then I think. I highly doubt there is just one of.. whatever did that.. and I want someone else around.. to help put some lead in things." Andrei offers off-handedly then as he moves to unshoulder his shotgun again, holding the barrel lightly in his left hand, and carefully checking that the saftey is on with the other. He'll then grip the gun reassuringly as he angles it up and takes a glance inside, night vision no doubt helping.

Daryl listened to the others while they did their thing and he just would go where he was needed most. But he did notice Alice's body language from behind and he stepped up beside her. He glanced her over for a second. "You hurt?" He asked her then, voice low to keep others from easily over hearing him. He lifted his eyes up from her hands, thinking she had a busted up arm or something, and looked at her eyes for a response.

In the low light, it might have seemed like something was wrong with Alice's eyes for an instant, but they were normal upon closer inspection. Shaking her head at Daryl's concern she replied barely above a whisper, "I'm fine. It's nothing." She didn't reply to Wesker but instead said to Daryl, "We should keep moving, wouldn't want to keep your new boss waiting too long."

A handful of moments, and those infected creatures in their cages freeze Rebecca's heart. "I think... the sooner we get the information and get out of here, the better," says Rebecca, glancing back over her shoulder towards the others. "I agree with Andrei though - splitting up is a bad idea... just... remember how it worked last time."

When Becca left the others to the Nemesis.

But here - in these glum halls, Rebecca was serving as point, or just behind point, actually - doing her S.T.A.R.S. training justice as she clears rooms and halls for the team.

ALBERT WESKER: One thing's certain, moving through the labs and into the research offices-- there aren't nearly enough animals penned in here to represent anything approaching a full house. Daryl and Andrei would realize this first, and the longwinded Mr. Dixon would get that familiar sense on top of it-- being watched. Stalked. A quick flash of motion catches the periphery of Daryl's vision as he scans the area, but when illuminated, there's nothing there except thick cobwebs; a common theme around the corners of the corridors.

The door to the office gives after a bit of effort, revealing just what Wesker wanted inside: an intact desk and workstation. "We should be able to get what we need here..." If there's enough juice left in his battery, at least. "Everyone clear?" It's quiet; too quiet. "This is going to take a few minutes..." Which would be better news if it didn't precede a long, loud crash and scratching from somewhere deeper in the facility.

ANDREI KIROV: Andrei Kirov for his part would just remain for his part silent over the contents of the cages, just trying to focus on the mission and not trying to spend too much time chasing an idle fancy that involved beasts escaping their cages. They might of escaped, who knows with animals.. and really, the more he spent focusing on it, the less he was attending to the issues at hand. He'll take his time to stand near the workstation then, his lips twisting into a frown, though the expression obscured by his gas-mask..

Then there is the crash and his head turns slightly and he lifts up the shotgun, saftey flipping off as he hears the sounds, grunting out then as he looks aside to Daryl and Alice then. "Nobody saw anything that could of just fallen on the way here right?" He'll idly offer, hoping beyond reason the answer is yes, though the actual cause was likley far more insidious.

DARYL DICKSON: Daryl turned when Andrei did, his crossbow coming up then and he went into full on ready-mode. "Hush up." He said to the others. Letting a pause linger as he took a step toward the 'sensation' that had piqued his mind. A second or two later and the southern gent spoke again. "Somethin's huntin' us." He told the others, staring down the sight of his weapon.

ALICE: If Alice claimed she was alright, it was the farthest thing from the truth possible. Beneath the skintight bodysuit she was wearing, the t-virus was mutating within her own cells, causing her to grab her arm in pain again and this time cry out loudly!

No doubt within the tight confines of the corridor the painful cry could be heard by anything lurking and she looked very pale as she collapsed to her knees; looking like she was about to start convulsing.

EPIC SAX WESKER: "For the love of..." Daryl demands silence, Alice -screams-. "... are you -infected-?" It's something of a rhetorical question; somehow, Wesker can -smell- it. "Check her blood, and get her mobile." The Captain urges Chambers, redoubling his efforts to link up the PC's power supply to his battery and slipping a dongle into a handy USB port as the system begins to boot.

"Kirov, Dixon-- whatever you have to do to keep that hallway clear. We need the way out of here open." Which means whatever's making a commotion, coming this way from deeper in the complex... should probably -not- get the chance to cut them off from the surface.

ANDREI KIROVS: Kirov's gaze will shift then towards Wesker's words then as he gives the man a long stare in the dark, his head following the man's movements carefully.. even as there is a screaming and writing Alice nearby. "Your words. Not mine." Kirov will state then as he steps up nearby the doorway and points the gun down the doorway, carefully aiming the shotgun where he might assume a chest might show up.

He''ll roll his left shoulder slightly, before letting the shotgun rest firmly in the nook of his arm carefully waiting, fingers tapping lightly against the barrel. "THis is going to get loud then."

What was it that's been said about best laid plans? In this case, bad goes quickly to worse, as Daryl's conclusion is proven... well, true, but raised to several powers truer than true. 'Something' isn't hunting them, but dozens, perhaps hundreds of somethings. Only Wesker sees them in the darkened labs as they swarm through the cracks, stealthily creep along and beneath the many pathways created by the junked furniture and haphazard blockades. Someone tried to make a stand here, already, it would quickly dawn on most-- this is probably about how theirs ended.

Despite their vigilant patrol, the squad is looking for an entirely different sort of enemy. The swarms quickly scramble eight legs at a time up Andrei and Daryl's legs, and poor Alice knelt on the ground-- she likely gets the worst of it. Arachnologists would theorize some sort of pheromone, ultrasonic, or electromagnetic communication that allows them to all start biting as if one organism; but regardless the truth, that's exactly what they do. Venomous bite after venomous bite, leaving tiny, infected wounds under and around all the unseen gaps in one's armor; should one be lucky enough to be wearing it, limiting access somewhat.

The only glow in the room is from the computer monitor, which displays first a complex script that breaks into its systems, and then a progress bar representing a file transfer. It's way, way too slow for this moment.

With a cry, Becca spies the oncoming spiders, and reflexively leaps out of the way - dodging to one side, her stylish sneakers squeaking on the floor as she... "...what's going on?! Are these spiders? Are they..." a beat, and her eyes glance to the others. "Get out of the way! They're acting weird!"

As the spiders begin to pour out of wherever the fuck are, Andrei just starts to squirm and step back. These squirms will soon turn to outright grunts, then even shouting a bit as he sputters out, maybe an octave or two higher then would be normal. "The fuck is that!?" He'll squeak as he moves to look down at his legs.. and then feel intense pressure and pain. Without much fanfare, Andrei is soon trying to brush all the buggers off and jog away, moving quickly off to the side, holding up his Shotgun then to try and get a good aim down the barrel at whatever the fuck horde is there. He'll take the time to line up a shot then, and try and pull the trigger at the ground.. if only to make sure that something would be punished for this indignity of biting him and causing his legs to feel like a new born calfs.

Daryl glanced back at Becca when she started swatting at him, but it didn't take him long to figure out WHY she was doing it as he saw them and took a wide step back and away. He didn't have time to tell her thanks though, that'd come later (if he remembered, or survived). "Its time to leave." He said loudly then to everyone who was willing to listen.

His crossbow was sent over his shoulder by its strap and he crouched, wrapped his hand under Alice's utility belt above her finely-toned-ass and he yanked her up to her feet. "Come on!" He said at her, glancing toward wherever the hell he last saw Andrei and Wesker.

Alice screamed as she was attacked from all directions, the little beasts getting all over her and she couldn't see where a damn one of them was. She was effectively blind and in the combination of her bout of illness and panic all she did was pull out her shotgun and try to smash any spiders near her.

Alice was almost surprised Daryl didn't give her a spanking in the dark with such a descriptive view of her ass, but she wasn't arguing as she was pulled to her feet by the man.

"I hate spiders." Since she was entirely disoriented at this point, she would rely on Daryl to lead the way, "Whatever you're being paid Daryl, it's not worth this."

To their credit, most of the team quickly acts and reorients to the unexpected angle of attack. Andrei suffers those nasty, stinging bites-- but quickly clears himself and retreats, blasting back the wave pursuing him with an impressive explosion of buckshot. It's difficult to do appreciable damage to a mob, but the shotgun is a tool well selected for the job at hand (or serendipitously suited it, as the case may be). It's not the typical methodology to exterminate arachnids, but an exploded mass of bug bits suggests it works.

Wesker follows a similar cue, leading the aggressive spiders on a wide arc around the offices, firing his Samurai Edge back into them with razor-sharp precision. A single 9mm might be poorly suited indeed to this task, particularly compared to the shotgun shell-- but fired in bursts, at just the perfect moment, the custom Baretta is like a coordinated artillery strike, utterly decimating that advancing line.

Rebecca manages to stay clear, for the moment, and clear the way for Alice and Daryl, who decide prompt retreat is the order of the day-- unfortunately, that prompt retreat brings them into the hallway leading back towards the elevator around the same time a spider about the size -of- that hallway squishes her mass around the corner, squatting sidelong against the wall like gravity was no thang.

Chittering menacingly from behind mandibles formidable enough to run a man through as she waves her pedipalps menacingly and promptly fills the hallway with strands of adhesive, resilient silk, adhering to the corners of the hall and other strands as the hallway is bathed in fresh, alarmingly strong-tensiled webbing.

Even with the sounds out in the hallway, Andrei has at least two to three warm bodies between himself and whatever is there. For the time being dealing with the more immediate threat had to be done, and so there is the man, who having squeaked and screamed not a few seconds earlier, is preparing to unload a few extra rounds of shot into the spiders on the ground. "Stay Away. AWAY AWAY." He'll recvite to himself under his respirator as he keeps away from the small horde of spiderlings then.

With pistol raised - Rebecca's reaction was clear. Lifting her pistol, she fires twice at the hulking monstrosity at the corner, her eyes growing wide as she tenses her stance - not quite noticing the swarm for the time being as she spends the time after firing to glance towards the others - a long breath leaving her as she looks to Weskers. "How much time do we need?" she calls, in the muck and gloom.

Daryl steps out into the hallway with Alice and he sees Shelob waiting for them. "Mother fucker." He muttered with a high level of annoyance lacing his voice. He glanced back to Alice and then went to pull her back the way they'd come, back toward where the rest of them were... blasting away and not coming to follow them.

"Daryl.." Alice let her words trail off as they came around the corner face to face with a rampaging spider straight out of a 50s horror movie; except it looked real. A few weeks ago, she would have ran for her life.

She would have given into the ordinary human fear despite her extraordinary genes and upbringing that had molded her into something a step above the average human. Then she learned she was simply an experiment in the eyes of Umbrella and the man she had known as a 'father'.

Project:Alice. Not Alice. Project:Alice.

They had done things to her, changed her so that she was no longer human. She hated it, the feeling of not being human.

Almost impossibly, she raised the SPAS-12 towards the Spider-Queen as she drew the MP5 from her side and opened fire on the Queen Bitch peppering it with multiple impacts.

Instead of letting Daryl drag her with him she pulled away and tossed the shotgun to Daryl as she cried out, "I'll distract it, get out of here. You can't die here, not like this after all you've been through. I'm not even human anymore though."

The MP5 was tossed aside and she drew a katana from the scabbard at her back and leapt towards the Spider, slicing and dicing it; and hopefully providing enough of a distraction for the others to flee.

Transferring... transferring... transferring. Never has a progress bar been more maddening, even advancing time ten years and including the glut of micropayment mobile games.

Andrei and Wesker do an admirable job of clearing out the aggressive arachnids in the offices with them, blasting the swarm with buckshot and peppering it with bullets, all but disintegrating the spider-bits of any spiderling unfortunate enough to be caught within one of the blast radii. All it really buys them is time, though: more keep coming, flooding in through the cracks in the doors, through the ventilation system. "We're...." Wesker draws it out, firing a second silenced burst and waiting a moment past that for everything to finalize before yanking the flash drive from the machine. "Set!"

Alice and Rebecca, at least at first, do little more than make the spider-queen angry. Her torso and legs are peppered with small arms fire, and then she rears to charge-- and one of Alice's rounds penetrates through her eye in a viscous eruption of blackish-green goop. It's just the kind of thing one wants to rush headlong, dodging around that pedipalps that look like they could singularly crush a human being. But that's just what Alice manages, weaving around the monstrosity's attacks and lunging in close...

The S.T.A.R.S. Captain tucks away the lab's intel and holsters his M92F, already possessed of some clue what's going down in the hallway. "Get back to the elevator!" Wesker urges, tossing his battery pack to Rebecca and reaching for the massive rifle slung over his shoulder...

Daryl accepted the shotgun tossed by Alice and he watched her get that crazy look in her eye. He thought about things for a moment, things and stuff... But thenhe just reached out try to grab her, but she was a slippery one. "Don't be an asshole! Lets go!" He shouted at her, having heard Wesker say the orders to retreat to the elevator. Daryl wrapped his hand around the shotgun's grip and prepared to fire it if anything tried to screw with him.

Snapping her hand out, Rebecca catches the battery pack easily - tucking it into her side bag. Within moments, Rebecca lifts her pistol up, sticking her tongue out of the side of her mouth as she squeezes off a single round, more concerned with backing into the hallway - towards the elevator proper. "Comeon everyone! Run run!"

Andrei doesn't need to be told anything twice. With his nightvision.. gas mask.. and scary shotgun in hand, and on his face respectivly, the figure, after getting biten isn't exactly in the mood to play chicken with a charging and pissed off spider, or shoot at the beast. Thus, Andrei books it, pushing past Chambers and 'leading' the way towards the elevator, which he'll quickly move to hunker down in and carefully take the time to make sure his ammunition is up to snuff.. and hide, hoping beyond hope that the Queen spider down one of those hallways.. is thoroughly killed or distracted by his mates.

"I'm not being an asshole if I save your life." Alice shot back at Daryl, surprised that Wesker was just standing in the hallway and shooting but she wasn't about to argue with the man. The Katana flashes left and right as she grips it in both hands, fighting like an ill-discipline samurai who has only seen how to use a sword in the movies.

Somehow it works though.

One of the spider's legs is sliced off and Alice releases her two-handed grip on the sword before reaching into her shoulder holster to draw a pistol, not looking like she was intending to run until everyone was out or this thing was dead.

When Wesker reaches the door back to the long, once-sterile hallway, he doesn't flee with the rest. he drops to one knee, and swings the anti-materiel rifle into firing position, carefully looking down the sights through the enhanced optics of his helmet. He breathes once, twice, times it perfectly. The precision is almost uncanny. The round, designed to disable an armored vehicle and unfathomably dangerous to lithe, deadly little Alice, threads the needle at just the right instant.

As one of the arachnid overlord's eight limbs is severed, and she rears back, her momentum is redoubled by that .50 caliber round piercing in a gorey geyser through the spider-queen's previously uninjured second main set of eyes, all but obliterating them as it exits out the flank of her carapace in a prominent spatter of chitin and goo. It's a display of prowess as singular as Alice's is frenetic; as icily cool and controlled under pressure as she is unstoppably ferocious.

The spider-queen takes this moment to change tactics-- and flees to the ceiling, and back into the darkness, deeper into the facility, trailing a dreadful loss of bodily fluids after her. "Alice! Elevator!" Wesker urges adamantly, as the stinging hordes climb up himself and Alice, and begin their biting assault. "Unless you don't think it's learned its lesson!!" Even now, there's dry snark.

Assuming Abernathy -does- join him, Wesker murmurs a few whispered words in her ear as he rushes to rejoin the team...

Andrei at this point is now standing quietly in the elevator, he would take to whistling softly if he couldn't peirce the tension in the air around him with a knife. After all.. he could hear gunshots.. screaming. Oh it is all quite scary and it is hard to keep oneself composed as he tilt his head to the side and looks out the elevator, waiting impatiently. A test push of the door closed button onlly confirms that the elevator is without power.

Damn.

"Don't have anywhere to be personally so.. you know.. take your time.. or.. whatever.." He'll mutter into the open air as he waits patiently, no doubt for the group to eventually come barrelling down the hallway and into the room leading to the elevator

Daryl enters the elevator and watches the two from inside it. He has so many questions and comments, things to say and... deep... rooted emotions just spilling out of his soul and crashing, CRASHING into his heart and mind.

On the outside though, Daryl is just standing there with a shotgun, about five other types of guns strapped to him, a crossbow, and a pissed off scowl on his face.

Reaching the elevator proper, Rebecca keeps her pistol held ready, and in front of herself. Hitting the ground in a skid, she changes direction soon afterwards, tucking herself into a corner of the elevator and using that for cover - and giving Daryl the space to fire over her if he needs. As well as bring one of her feet forward in that kneel, to hold in front of the door sensor. So the door doesn't close. Shaking hands holding the pistol, she aims down the hallway, waiting for a clear shot at... anything.

Alice had another reason for drawing the pistol even as she fired a pair of shots into the spider and sliced at it with her katana. One of the shots was aimed at a fire extinguisher on the wall, hoping to cause some kind of explosive force or something like that.

She had no clue if that's how it worked.

Shining the small tac-light on the police issue pistol around she spotted what looked like a gas pipe on the roof above the spider and started to run towards the elevator.

Sheathing the katana in the scabbard and cartwheeling forward like an Olympic athlete, she entered the elevator and came down on one knee to point the light of the flashlight at the gas line on the ceiling, calling out, "Shoot it!"

The fire extinguisher dramatically explodes... in a hiss of white, flame-retarding spray. As they round the corner and into the elevator, Wesker moments behind Alice, the gas line does not, and Wesker quickly reaches out to physically forestall the shooting. "A localized explosion isn't going to kill anything but us and a few spiders." he protests, even as he swats and smashes at the ones still clinging to him.

"This will all be gone in a few days, anyway." Or so his intel on the military's plans tells him. "Let's /go/." Wesker stows the oversized rifle and draws his Samurai Edge back into familiar grasp, nodding to the others and hitting the button on the elevator just as Rebecca finishes rigging it up. "Good work, everyone. Now we just have to survive until the cavalry gets here..."

"Survive. Right, easy enough." Andrei offers rather cheerfully now as he looks up, as if he can somehow see through the roof of the elevator then as he casts a curious glance aside to Wesker and Alice then, the latter getting a more curious stare than the former. A quick shift to the side of the elevator away from her then before he offers a soft cough then as he look back up to the ceiling again.

Becca had slipped her pistol back into her rig, then, working on getting the battery pack attached to the machine proper. Bringing up a hand to brush her nose, they finally get things ready - and a button sends the elevator working. Rising up to a stand, she turns towards the others, her eyes settling on Daryl. "What /was/ that?" she asks the man.

Daryl, just watched. Once the elevator started moving he just started shaking his head... So many words, so many many, many words. Rebecca spoke first though and at -him-? He looked over and down at her. "I think it was a spider." He said quietly to her, annoyance and restrained anger thick in his voice. "Don't quote me on that though, Doc." And with that said, the shotgun was slung over his shoulder along with the rest of the Gun Show slung across his entire freaking body.

Alice breathed a sigh of relief as the elevator door began to close and put her pistol back in the holster, "That was close, too close." Leaning forward she arched her back as she stretched out, one hand on the wall of the elevator.

"It was a bio-weapon created by the Umbrella Corporation." Alice responded for Wesker, "Likely mutated with the t-Virus or one of its strains. In most cases, it kills the host and reanimates their dead cells... and giving them an insatiable craving for flesh."

Looking over her shoulder at Daryl and the others, her hair falling to her shoulders since her pony-tail had come loose during the fight, "This is the beginning of the end if Umbrella isn't stopped."

Wesker actually chuckles quietly at Daryl's assessment. The hunter is, in fact, accurate-- and the moment is heavy enough to demand a bit of dark levity. "The R-Virus, in this case. All but certainly one of the mutated strains being researched here." With entirely more cross-species success than anyone-- or, well, most anyone-- ever expected. This is what such a virus -does-, so it always escapes Wesker how idiots keep coming to that conclusion. REGARDLESS:

"If only it were limited to Umbrella." Wesker sincerely laments. "The genie is out of the bottle now, everyone-- who wasn't already-- will be trying to get their hands on it; to develop their own." The Captain shakes his head, sighs sadly. "There is nothing unique here except the methodology with which man exercises inhumanity upon man." War. War never changes.

The elevator arrives with a jarring jostle at the top of its ascent, letting the team back out where they went in, back into the desolate campus hall. In the distance, no shortage of groaning and hammering can be heard. "Back to stealth operating parameters. Let's get a visual out through the front windows." Wesker draws a deep, steadying breath.

As the door of the elevator start to open, Andrei will be quick to walk out of the elevator then, turning his head to look back at the trio then as he move along, taking a few tenative steps. Of course then its time to be stealthy, and once again, Andrei drops down a bit to a crouch and starts to slowly shuffle his way about the campus as he takes a peek around corners and tries to make his way to the aformentioned front windows. Follow orders. Survive.

Daryl walks off of the elevator upright, he exhales when the get off of the damn thing and he just walks casually while looking around. He wasn't going all... super Seal Team Six mode with this much gear on his back. He's 38 years old, not some damn kid.

"Take care of yourselves." Alice said to the group as they began activating their team stealth, a sad smile given to Daryl in particular, "Make sure you get out alive, Daryl. I'd hate to see you become one of them."

Who was Alice referring to though? The infected? A pawn in these games? One of Wesker's minions? It could have meant anything.

Turning around she began to walk quietly down another hallway. A glance over her shoulder was given in Wesker's direction, considering the words he had spoke. It troubled her deeply, which was why she had never responded.

"I'm not a weapon... I'm a person." She whispered under her breath as she walked.

The team has no trouble deploying through the hall, even as Alice slips back into the shadows. It's tempting to try to stop her-- but the simplicity and similar curiousity towards letting his sister project forge her own fate wins out, in the end, and a nod of thanks is all the parting sentimentality offered. The view from the front of the Hall, however, is disconcerting to say the least-- the roving zombie coalitions may be mostly cleared out, still, but the view in the nightvision is instead of several towering, dark-clad figures. Too large for men, their movements wrong, distorted even at first glance.

They stride patiently, inexorably towards the hidden lab-- or perhaps the team themselves. Menacing shapes scamper from cover to cover, window to window of nearby buildings. Overhead, chopper blades rip through the air, their audible reverberations carrying to the team; and then reverberating through the structure of the buildings within. It's difficult to see what's causing the ruckus (aside from the obvious) from their vantage point, but there's a tense moment where it's likely no one is sure whether things are about to get better.. or a whole lot worse.

Any decisive action is forestalled by a little voice in Wesker's ear. Coming, in this case, from the spec ops communicator in his helmet. "That's our ride." Wesker tells the others. "Lay down fire support and clear stragglers so our way out is clear!" Exactly what Wesker means by that might become more apparent as the low-flying blackhawk illuminates itself via barrage of rockets and the ceaseless, metallic whine of a heavy minigun.

Andrei by this point has taken his spot at the windows, waiting patiently for something.. anything to happen as he watches.. or really hears their ride out before seeing it. Upon Wesker's command, he'll peek his head up over the edge and slowly slide the shotgun over, still trying to be sneaky.. and just wait paitently for anything that might get too close or wander over. Ammo conservation being key now as Andrei for the time being just waits, he really is quite terrible about all of this shooting stuff.

Until gunfire will inevitiably start..

AND than, and only than will he pull the trigger a few times, pump a few rounds in some of the zeds that get just a bit too close for comfort, and return to his hiding, and waiting.

Daryl tipped his chin back toward Alice when she spoke to him. "Watch yourself." Is all he said in response to her, though she was obviously an intriguing person, he had his own ass to watch more than watching hers disappearing down that separate hallway.

Continuing to follow the others, Daryl pulled that shotgun out from the arsenal on his back and he shot out after the others, raising it up to fire it off at anything that threatened to break into their pathway. When they got too close, he'd switch to the knife that he also heled close to his wrist and plunge it into their skulls before tearing it back out, following out their esteemed leader to get the hell out of here.

The walking mall and adjacent lot are torn asunder by the passage of that well-equipped military chopper, minigun chewing asphalt as surely as it penetrates the flesh of each and every B.O.W. in its firing path. Those resilient to even the heavy fire are consumed in fireballs as rocket after rocket detonates along the area. Shrapnel that was once fine landscaping and architecture along the university's concourse is now the product of a volatile firestorm, one that breaks windows and sends tangible heat even as far afield as the allies' cover.

Those beasts that flee the blast zones are put down swiftly by concerted fire from the concealed team, and in the moment's breath between chaotic, life-threatening moments-- they have their chance. "Let's move, now!" Wesker encourages with a directive that no one is likely to need encouragement to follow. "There's a lot down the hill big enough for them to put down; let's get the hell /out/ of here!" -No one- is liable to argue with that.